Shifting the Paradigm for Interprofessional Healthcare Education: Linking Academia and Health Care Systems

Abstract

Changes in practice and the health care delivery system must be linked to health care education reform. Stimulated by the 2013 Affordable Care Act, the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, published their conference recommendations to support the fact that rapid health care delivery redesign is not matching the pace of health professional education reform. Interprofessional education (IPE) is defined as a planned experience for learners for more than one discipline that includes direct instruction (eg. didactics, seminars, workshops) and/or a clinical experience in interprofessional care. IPE is a necessary step for health care professional students to prepare to practice in an Interprofesssional Collaborative Practice (IPCP) model. The 2011 IPCP expert panel report recommends that IPE training should occur in four core competencies that include 1) values and ethics; 2) roles/responsibilities; 3) interprofessional communication and 4) teams and teamwork. Two additional domains include patient/client/family/communitycentered care and interprofessional conflict resolution, a subset of interprofessional communication. This paper offers commentary/perspective on major challenges in IPE that include uniformity of health care professions in their accreditation standards, challenges posed by the diversity of student health professional training, and the need for faculty development in program implementation. Although there are examples of mature and well-defined IPE programs across the country, the University of Hawaii’s early experience most likely reflects the status of most programs across the country. Description of an interprofessional work group tasked with developing a strategic plan and an early pilot project that includes key challenges of distance and geography are superficially described. A partnership between academia, two large health systems and the largest Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Hawai’i provide opportunity for collaboration and linking health care reform synchronously with education advances in IPE.